Mystery of the Missing Wife - 52 Ancestors - Close to Home

Therese Walther Pier disappeared from her family between the 1900 and 1910 censuses in Galveston County, Texas.  This was a close-to-home mystery, as I had lived on Galveston Island. 

I had been searching for her death record for quite awhile to fill in this great-grandmother’s details. (Family members - not mine personally.)  Her husband, Nicholas Pier, died there. He’s in many First Lutheran Church records, along with their daughters and their families. A visit to the Rosenberg Library in 2014 didn’t lead to any break-through.  There was, however, two Nicholas Pier men in their records.  One died in 1900 and one in 1918.  We knew our Nicholas, the cigar maker,  died in 1918.

I returned home and kept looking.  My thoughts were:

      1.Perhaps she died during the 1900 hurricane, along with 6000 others.

       2. Could she have died in the Port Arthur-Beaumont area where Nicholas had a second cigar store on the 1910 census?

     
   3. Long shot, but did she return home to Louisiana to live with family?

Keystone View Company. Seeking valuables in the wreckage, Galveston, Texas. Meadville, Pa.: Keystone View Co. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

No records were online for her death in the 1900 storm.  Nor could I find records over in Port Arthur/Beaumont area, after much searching.  She didn’t seem to have returned to New Orleans either. Then I looked for Nicholas Pier who died in 1900. Maybe he was a cousin or other relative. City directories are pretty complete for Galveston, but there was only one Nicholas Pier, a cigar maker.

On a more recent trip to Texas,  I went back to Rosenberg Library to see if they had more records for the tragic 1900 storm.  I learned most of the people were recognized in some way.  There is an alphabetized list of more than 5000 missing and dead.

Other interesting facts about deaths from the storm turned up.  Many people died soon after the storm, either from injuries sustained, or from disease brought about as a result of living conditions immediately after the storm. See the photo of some of the tents erected for the residents.  Citizens also built temporary wooden structures from the lumber available resulting from the destruction of homes and buildings.

Looking over a list of available research materials in the library the night before I was to leave, I noticed a record titled “Death Certificates, City of Galveston, ca. 1880 – 1910.”  Very few Texas death certificates are available before 1903. By this time, it had occurred to me that maybe the Mr. Nicholas Pier who died in 1900 was in fact a Mrs. Nicholas Pier.  You may have already guessed this.  I elected to stay another day, and am so glad I did.   Yes, the funeral home death record clearly said Mrs. Nicholas Pier and listed her as female.  Problem solved!  The librarians there were so helpful.  I don't think my happy dance impressed them though.
                         
Photo Credit:  American Stereoscopic Company. Shelter for the homeless, Galveston's awful disaster. New York, U.S.A.: American Stereoscopic Co. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, .

Here's Mrs. Pier (same date of death and info as Mr. Nicholas Pier in the cemetery book):

Death Certificates, City of Galveston, ca. 1880 - 1910. MS#86-0005 microfilm. Copy at  Clayton Library, Houston.

I have no problem with the transcription error for the cemetery records found earlier – it’s easy to get in a hurry and assume that Nicholas Pier was likely a man.  Sadly, Mrs. Therese Walther Pier was not even buried with her own first name.  I’m glad we are smarter than that now. 

Now I need to find her parents.  Every mystery solved means yet more mysteries.